Alcohol & I

I don’t drink.

Having a beer or a glass of wine or whatever has just never really appealed to me. But drinking in and of itself is not a sin, and I think lately God has been doing His darndest to smack that into my head.

My History With Alcohol

I don’t really know where my hatred of alcohol ever came from.  When I was growing up my parents never really drank, they had a couple bottles of something that I could only assume was alcohol but never once can I remember them drinking it at any time (at least in my sight). But I was talking to my brother earlier and neither of us could actually recall a time when our parents ever said anything about alcohol, no “drinking is bad,” “don’t drink from those bottles on the fridge,” or even “don’t drink til you’re 21” or anything… it just never even came up.

But for some reason my brother and I both share something deep that has caused us to disenjoy drinking.

I was talking to my buddy Brian about this when I kind of came to the realization that I never had any positive role models that drank when I was growing up. To me there were my parents and youth leaders at the church and my close friends and none of them drank - and then the other end of the spectrum were the “friends” I knew at school who went out to get wasted every weekend.  So in my life alcohol was always associated with those kids that partied and what not, and never with anything or anyone positive.

Role Models Changed

For the first time ever, I now have positive role models that consume alcohol in a safe manner, and have helped me to open my eyes to alcohol being something other than a path to drunkenness.

• Brandon: my best bud all through junior and high school. He’s never pressured me to drink and even just today was telling me that I should never drink because I “feel like I should,” but rather when I feel ready and want to have that first drink.
• Andrea: the new girl in my life. She’s great in so many ways, and really fits a lot of what I’ve prayed for in a girl (and a total cutie)… and she’s also the first girl I’ve dated that drinks. We’ve had a few good talks about it and she’s been really understanding and helpful.
• Branden: another friend of mine who’s a youth pastor down south of us.  We hung out the other day and he talked a few words of wisdom on alcohol to me.
• My mom: okay, this is just weird. I was home in P-Town (Puyallup) at the ‘rents and I saw a some Mike’s Hard Lemonade in the fridge, which was quite odd. But apparently my mom really likes them so they’ve been keeping the fridge stocked. As you can imagine it was pretty shocking to my previous perception of alcohol when my mom starts drinking Mike’s.

A Change In Perspective

Over the past year as these new models have presented themselves I felt convicted in my thoughts about alcohol. I had gotten to the point where I was judging others harshly by being at all associated with it, almost condemning people with my thoughts as a Pharisee would. I was finally now realizing that I needed to let that go.

For a while it was just to the point of being tolerant around alcohol, but more recently I’ve decided that I need to be acceptant of it as well. It is a part of our society, it is a part of our culture, and it is not a bad thing. Sure it can be taken to excess, but so can a lot of other things, it doesn’t make them inherently bad.

While I know this in my head, I do still have to train my heart to accept this. I’ve spent most of my life feeling one way and I think it may still be awhile before I can feel completely free and comfortable around people who are drinking.

But I will be trying.

And when I do feel ready, I will have that first drink - and it will be guilt-free.